


Queering the Pitch

by arby



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Absinthe, Angst, Gay Bar, M/M, One Night Stands, Pining, Revenge Sex, Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-21
Updated: 2012-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 21:06:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arby/pseuds/arby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John have a fight, and Sherlock storms out, turning into the nearest place that's open, which turns out to be a gay bar. He's drinking absinthe, and when a secret admirer buys him more, he ends up going home with the stranger. Little does he know that they already have someone in common. Takes place in S1 before the Great Game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queering the Pitch

The front door of 221 Baker Street slams shut with a heartless finality, like a dungeon’s. Sherlock's long stride doesn't falter as he walks away. He can hear their voices faintly out the window, but has no interest in speculating on their conversation. Because his faculties are always working, whether he listens to them or not, they inform him that Mrs. Hudson appears to be remonstrating and/or commiserating with John. Sherlock tells himself he doesn't care - he's fuming, almost incandescent with rage. He doesn't pause to look around but wheels straight into the nearest bar, seeking oblivion.

As a general rule, Sherlock doesn't drink alcohol – it kills far too many precious brain cells - but he has been known to imbibe absinthe on particularly trying occasions. He sits down at the end of the bar and orders a glass. It tastes deliciously of licorice and burnt sugar and the color? Green as Envy. He drains it in six swallows and sets down the empty glass with a small _thud_. A dish of Picalilli on the counter beckons.

Before he has a chance to order another drink, a fresh glass brimming with the same deliciously neon liquid appears before him, as if by magic. He frowns, looks at the bartender suspiciously, who shrugs, then gestures vaguely towards the darkest corner of the room.

Sherlock sends back a note, scribbled on a napkin.

_Who is this?_

The napkin comes back with a number on the reverse side. Sherlock texts it.

_Don't make me repeat myself. Bored now._

After a minute the answer comes.

_An admirer from afar. Want to come sit with me, have another bevvy? My treat._

He thinks about John for a second. _Unclear why – John has made it perfectly clear that he is not gay, let alone the slightest bit interested in me in a romantic or sexual fashion, regardless of the sexual orientation of either party._

The absinthe is kicking in now with some low-grade hallucinations in the form of flash-backs – his faculty spasms and Sherlock involuntarily recalls the exact arctic temperature of John's voice, just before Sherlock walked out. He grits his teeth in frustration. _Fine._ He snatches his drink and leaves the bar area, wandering towards the back. Sherlock’s seat had not been chosen so he could see all the exits, as is his usual wont, so his mysterious friend could have easily have slipped in after Sherlock stumbled in.

5’8”, 130 lbs, supremely average-looking, so painfully predictably sitting alone in the darkest corner booth, only saved from utter ordinariness by being tailored to within an inch of his life. The man winks at him, then mocks coy smiles flirtatiously.

Sherlock scowls back.

The man inexplicably responds by clapping his hands lightly with glee.

Sherlock scowls harder.

"Delightful! _Do_ sit down, you big grump, and stop blocking my view!"

This is obviously the so-called admirer. Sherlock sits down catty-corner and opens his mouth to introduce himself, but the man forestalls him.

"No one uses their real names in this place. Too much scandal, you know. I go by Horry here."

Horry makes him think of Harry, which is too close to John to be safely referenced. He tamps down the feelings as if packing a powderkeg, and instantly resolves not to use it. _There’s no point, anyway. It’s not real. This whole thing is not real, it’s playacting._

"Erm," what is a good fake name that anyone with half a brain can't decipher in a heartbeat, "Bill."

The man laughs openly at that, not unpleasingly. He’s not half drunk himself.

"Pardon my saying so, but you don't look at all like a Bill. I'd have pegged you for something a little less...ordinary than that."

“That’s why it’s perfect. So ordinary. Who remembers a Bill?” replies Sherlock.

The man beckons over a waiter and orders more drinks. Meanwhile, Sherlock relishes the consumption of a not insignificant quantity of relish.

* * * * *

After five glasses of absinthe, Sherlock is beginning to feel his oats. The man is hanging on his every word, laughing at everything he says, and generally fawning over him as if he is a millionaire or American celebrity. This, combined with the physical proximity and the constant slight touches - not to mention the aforementioned copious quantities of absinthe - makes Sherlock pleasantly dizzy, his surroundings and companion rendered more than slightly surreal. He’s happy enough if half-mindless with liqueur and his skin is creeping with something that might be the elusive lust.

He doesn't remember what he's been saying, but it doesn't seem to matter. The man is casting him worshipful looks, practically fluttering his eyelashes at Sherlock, until finally Sherlock rolls his eyes, says, "Oh, _sod_ it" – leans over and kisses the pouting mouth, furiously, somewhere in the back of his mind still thinking of John, wondering if John ever thinks of Sherlock when snogging one of his innumerable stupid girlfriends.

The man sighs into Sherlock's mouth and proceeds to do something with his tongue that Sherlock has never felt before. It sends a lightning bolt down Sherlock's spine, straight to his cock, which stiffens in his pants. The man has boldly, yet coyly, placed a hand on Sherlock's thigh.

The man falls away from the kiss, panting, breathless, until he visibly musters up the guts to say, "My place or yours?"

 _My place._ John would be typing endlessly on his stupid blog, probably, or out with one of his idiot drinking mates or even bigger idiot of the latest interchangeable chippie of a girlfriend. Sherlock shakes his head as if to physically fling off the thought.

"Yours," he breathes into the man's ear, before driving him wild by tonguing it.

* * * * *

The man's flat is neat, almost sterile. Sherlock frowns to himself, looking at it - something isn't right here. But he's still fuzzy – _deductive faculties most definitely dulled_ – and before he has the chance to say anything, the man distracts him by taking his hand and leading him to the bedroom.

Sherlock had never really thought very much about the mechanics of gay sex, but it seems straightforward enough. It's rather like straight sex in that someone is pronged and someone does the pronging, but with the alternative path of reciprocal blow-jobs. The man is strangely happy to do the latter for him, kneeling at his feet and taking Sherlock in his mouth as if it's the greatest thing anyone's ever done for him, to let himself be blown. It feels rather amazing, at that, but Sherlock is still thinking about John - hating himself for it, but nonetheless - and can't focus. The man seems to sense his mental distance and gets off on it. Finally Sherlock takes pity on him - though Sherlock was nowhere near climax - and takes his hand, lifting him gently to his feet.

"Thank you," he says sincerely. ( _John would be proud_ , a tiny voice says in the back of his mind.) "That was fantastic."

The man is thrilled. He kisses Sherlock deeply. Sherlock tastes himself on the man's mouth and finds it strangely arousing.

In the end, Sherlock has the man twice: the first time urgent, gasping and raw, the second slower and more deliberate. Sherlock feels a great personal triumph in controlling his thoughts and avoiding thinking of John as he reaches acmegenesis.

The man goes boneless at the very end, and when Sherlock touches his cock, shudders all over as if he's been electrocuted. Sherlock finds this mildly intriguing.

"You all right?"

The man's eyes are rolling back in his head. For a moment, he cannot seem to form words.

"Oh, _yes_ ," he pants, "more than all right." He smiles almost shyly.

Sherlock is relieved. His traitorous mind wants to tell John, to brag about his prowess or something equally asinine, but a flick of his memory back to the last thing John said before Sherlock walked out the door ("For such a famous genius, you can be awfully thick! I don't know how to get it through your head that I'm _not_ gay!") instantly scotched that idea.

And yet, Baker Street is still the only place he can go. He judges by the light coming in through the bedroom shades that it's going on six o'clock in the morning. He should be getting back.

He gets up, starts dressing. The man watches him languidly from among the tangled sheets, before stretching and starting to say something, when he is interrupted by a downstairs entry buzzer going off. The man freezes for a second - the guilty look on his face would possibly be hilarious, if Sherlock understood its cause ( _or if someone who shall not be named were here to share it with me_ ) before leaping out of the bed as if it's on fire.

"Go out the back, please - you mustn't be seen here!"

Sherlock doesn't care about his own reputation - _obviously_ , the John voice in his head remarks acidulously - but he sees no reason to trash the man's, whoever he may be. The man is buzzing up his visitor, looking frantically over his shoulder at Sherlock and making _hurry up_ motions. Sherlock rolls his eyes, throws his coat over his arm and scarpers out the back, which is a service entrance leading to a stairwell. As he's closing the door, he hears a voice and the man speaking loudly to attempt to cover it up:

"What kind of monkey business are you up to this time?" A cool, supremely collected voice, underlain with more than a hint of dry amusement. Sherlock knows it - as well as he knows his own.

"Who, me? I'm as pure as the driven snow."

Sherlock stumbles on the steps as the realization belatedly (six seconds, which is an eternity to Sherlock) hits him. _Mycroft_.

“Pardon me if I’ve queered your pitch, won’t you? I was not at all in the neighborhood.” Mycroft’s tone is almost inexplicably tender.

Mycroft? What the hell was he doing there? He obviously has some kind of emotional or sexual relationship with this man. The (mildly, boringly) curious bit is the timing. Who pays social calls at 6am?

Sherlock knows he's not going to like the answers to these questions. His head is still reeling with the implications as he comes in the front door of 221 Baker Street and makes his way upstairs.


End file.
